Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie

The year of 1999 saw the release of Sega's last console, the Dreamcast, but at the same time saw an English language release of a Sonic anime movie that originally came out a year before in Japan, simply known as Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. In a nutshell, it's a retelling of how Dr. Robotnik created Metal Sonic, but with a side story as well. So today I'll be looking at this bizarre movie that I chanced upon many years ago.

The intro credits begin as we get our first glimpse of Metal Sonic as Robotnik's seen in silhouette, going on about how he'll capture Sonic for his "life data" to store in Metal Sonic's data making him an ultimate destroying machine. Then it cuts to Sonic and Tails resting on the beach, only to get interrupted by a crazy owl crash landing in a plane warning the two that the President of South Island (He's literally just known as President) has been taken hostage along with his daughter, Princess Sara, by Robotnik.

Giving in to Robotnik's demands he tells the two to go to the "inner dimension", an area where Robotnik was said to live in peace, and to take out "Metal Robotnik" before he destroys the Robot Generator. Running electricity in the city without it getting fixed could cause a massive explosion, and before having the two leave, Robotnik gives them a locator device showing where his location is. By running into a "warp zone" (hear that, Mario?) the two enter a dimensional portal just escaping the President's building and making their way to Robotropolis. There they encounter the Metal Robotnik and Knuckles (who isn't guarding the Master Emerald as he should be).

Stopping the Metal Robotnik reveals that Robotnik himself was piloting the robot with Sara by his side, as Sonic and the others leave to save the Robot Generator. They just do save it from exploding by a second on the timer. Then Sonic meets Metal Sonic face to face while leaving Robotropolis as it begins to crumble to the ground.

Sonic, getting the crap beat out of him by Metal, winds up out of Robotropolis and back in the other dimension before waking up, racing back to find Metal Sonic while Tails and Knuckles fly back to South Island to find out that it's been sabotaged. Fiddling around with the locator device Robotnik gave him earlier, Tails finds the location of Metal Sonic. Meanwhile we get a little history behind the planet from Knuckles, mentioning that a glacier in the depths of it hold it together and causing it to shatter could destroy the planet itself if the magma around it caused an explosion. Sonic finally catches up with Metal Sonic and Robotnik in the deep reaches of the planet and goes right back to butting heads with Metal while Tails and Knuckles drop in again.

A rather funny highlight of the movie is after Metal Sonic gets knocked into Robotnik's flying ship with Sara, he emerges from the ship's floor getting a peek at her as she kicks him in the head repeatedly.

The last few minutes of the movie continue having Sonic and Metal Sonic going at it with Sara trying to get a few hits in on Metal after Robotnik exclaims that he plans on marrying her. Sonic nearly knocks Metal into the planet's magma pit.

Metal swipes at Sonic's hand slowly falling to his death as he claims that there can only be one Sonic, then his death occurs off-screen. The others just try to cheer Sonic up, reminding him that he saved the planet, but Robotnik looms over them, telling them that he still has Sonic's data on a disc, only for the disc to fall into one of his animal robots causing it to explode, and Princess Sara and the President head back home on Robotnik's ship.

And the movie ends there. So what are my thoughts on it? Well as far as '90s anime dubs go, the English voice acting is nothing short of terrible, with Tails having the most annoying voice. As for the plot, it really is out of the ordinary, but if you've played Sonic CD and know the story from that then it shouldn't feel much different. It's just that the location the movie's set in as well as the human characters showing up in it aren't really canon to the Sonic universe. It's not something I'd watch again and again, but if you want to see a Sonic movie that's just a tad close to the source material then I suppose it's good for a watch.

So what are YOUR thoughts, reader? Leave a comment and as always, see you next article!